Hello! I was wondering if anyone had tips on fading out a lure for a certain trick/action? Particularly with lie down. He does it fine with a hand motion of dropping my hand to the ground, but he won't lie down when I give the cue anywhere further away than 30cm (ie, he relies on a close hand gesture resembling the lure). So I wanted to ask if anyone had advice on how to teach lie down from scratch, and what intermediate steps to take until I can be standing at a distance, give the cue, and have him drop down? He's well acquainted with clicker training, by the way. Also, any ideas for a fresh cue? I think I've poisoned "lie down". We use "drop" for dropping things from his mouth, and "down" for getting off of things. Thanks for any help!
I use "floor" for a down. It's far less likely to be used for other things. The first thing is to ensure that your dog is responding to the old cue (the faked lure) reliably. Then, make a small approximation towards your final position. So, if you're kneeling usually, and want to end up standing, your first approximation may be kneeling just on one knee. Because you've changed something, you want to make the rest of it easier. So, lure again a couple of times from this new position, then fake the lure as normal. Then, make another approximation towards your final position. So, maybe this time, in a crouch position. Repeat as above. As you start to stand up, obviously you won't be able to lure (or fake) in the same way. I'd suggest you start using an approximation of the luring motion as your new (interim) cue. My dogs lie down when I move my open hand in a downwards movement in front of me, palm down. So, as you move towards your stand, "fade" your lure motion into this movement. You should only ever introduce a verbal cue once your dog is reliably performing the final iteration of the behaviour, so you should be silent up until now. Then, once you would bet £100 on your dog laying down when you make the visual cue from your standing position, you can start to introduce the verbal. So, you'd say "floor" (or your chosen word), followed by the visual cue. Repeat this a few times and then give your verbal cue and wait for a couple of seconds. If the dog doesn't respond, you give your visual cue. Do a couple more reps of new cue - old cue with no pause, then try pausing again. What you're after is the dog anticipating that the word means the cue he understands is coming. When he does this, reward him well, and try again. It usually takes a little while to swap cues, so do this over a couple of sessions and don't be afraid to go over the new cue - old cue stuff again. I found the hardest part of the "down" was getting from a point where I was leaning over to being able to stand up completely straight. It took quite a few sessions to get that down pat. So, take your time and you'll get there.
Ah, that makes so much sense. Thank you, this is really helpful! I'm excited to give it a try tomorrow, I'm super keen on getting a solid lie down going... mainly because I want to improve his "play dead" and teach "roll over" as well
I don't use my down very often at all, but it's useful for the start of a lie-on-side or lie-on-back, which can be very useful for husbandry stuff.
We used the heeling stick to get distance on a DOWN. Any stick will do, get dog used to downing behind the stick, you move back a step, dog still behind stick, ask for down again. All mine understood this fairly quickly and I faded the stick after I was able to move back several feet. After fading the stick of course I moved back closer to dog again then increased distance as before. Then we did the same thing for drop on recall, put a stick on the floor, dog only a few feet back this time. For some reason many here use DROP when it's in a recall. I found my dogs understood DOWN as a position, not an action, so it worked for me for both
